Woman has less than 96 hours to raise £140,000 to preserve teen son’s body after he tragically took own life
Warning: This article contains discussion of suicide which some readers may find distressing.
A woman is in a race against the clock to raise enough money to have her teenage son cryogenically frozen, after he tragically took his own life last week.
Australian actor Clare McCann recently launched a GoFundMe saying she only had seven days to raise AUS$300,000 (£143,000) to cryogenically preserve the body of her 13-year-old son Atreyu.
She explained that her teenage son took his own life 'after months of horrific bullying at his public school' after she says she 'raised the alarm repeatedly'.
Advert
McCann said she had medical records, psychological reports and a PTSD diagnosis from a doctor to prove that she regularly flagged up how worried she was about her son.
Now, she wants to have Atreyu cryogenically preserved in the hope that he might possibly be revived by future scientific advancements.
'Only have one chance left'
In the GoFundMe, which can be donated to here, the mum said she needed to raise enough money before the opportunity was gone.
She wrote on the fundraiser, launched on Sunday (25 May), that: "We only have one chance left to cryogenically preserve his body within the next 7 days.
"If we miss this window, we lose the chance for any future revival that science may offer. This is about hope and justice. Refusing to let my son’s story end in silence."
If the fundraiser, which at time of writing has raised AUS$10,000 (£4,700), reaches its goal then the money will go towards getting Atreyu's body cryogenically frozen and pay for the various travel and medical costs involved.
McCann also wants to set up a trust on her son's behalf 'to protect his legacy'.
How does cryopreservation work?
The technology to bring someone back from the dead does not currently exist, and according to BBC Future nobody who has ever undergone cryopreservation has been successfully revived.
They also warned that even if someone was brought back out of cryopreservation they could end up severely brain damaged.
Simply freezing someone will not preserve their body in a way that could ever be brought back, as ice crystals which destroyed tissue would form.
Instead, modern cryogenics replaces everything that could freeze inside the body with a cryoprotective agent and it is then brought down to -125C in temperature and slowly set on a path to -196C.
The idea then is that the cryogenically preserved body is placed into storage until such time that science advances and whatever it was that killed them can be reversed.
If you’ve been affected by any of these issues and want to speak to someone in confidence, please don’t suffer alone. Call Samaritans for free on their anonymous 24-hour phone line on 116 123.
Joe Harker